Bandung is Indonesia’s third biggest city and is located in West Java. With way cooler temperatures than Jakarta, it’s the perfect getaway. Be prepared for some crazy cool Instagram spots like Rabbit Town, beautiful mountain scenery and many traffic jams (it’s almost as busy as Jakarta). There are a lot of fun things to do in and around Bandung and you can totally do it on a day trip!

In and around Bandung you can find many crazy Instagrammable hotspots. And you will find them in the weirdest places. The first one we stumble upon is the area around Cakrawala Sparkling Nature Restaurant. A great place for drinks and food at one of the restaurants or just to enjoy the view and photo spots.

Rabbit town is even more random, but we like fun places so it’s perfect! If you want colourful pictures, go here. The building is full of crazy, colourfully decorated rooms – on multiple levels. We paid 65.000 IDR entrance fee to Rabbit town.

I had such a great time on the beautiful island of Gili Air! I enjoyed spending my day just doing just what I like to do the most, which is chillaxing 🙂

This is how my typical day on the island looked like. As soon as I woke up, after a refreshing calm night sleep, some fresh water on my face, just a bit of fruit to break the night fast, I was out for a good 1 hour jogging around the island before the heat hit too strongly (the island is very small, so in less than one hour you have been running all around it). Soon after, a refreshing shower in my open air shower overlooking the ocean! a super powered breakfast soon after; a refreshing dip into the ocean; relaxing on the beach; plenty of coffee and fresh fruits during the day; drinks at sunset (on the sunset beach of course!); beautiful dinners with fresh fish; and more drinks and good music after dinner.

This is life, isnt it? I was not lucky with the weather: I visited in December, when the Monsoon storms hit very strongly the area, so I did not enjoy very much the underwater life. I did some snorkeling, but in all honesty I did not have much luck!

Stefan and Sebastian are two bloggers known as the Nomadic Boys. They are a gay couple: we met in London a few years ago, and we are friends since then! They traveled all the way from Europe to Asia a couple of years ago and ate their way around Southeast Asia for almost two years. Recently they have relocated to South America, planning to travel around the area for a few years and tell it all in their blog! If you have never bumped into them take a look at their blog and to their Instagram account! They are absolutely gorgeous!

Why am I talking about the Stefan and Sebastian? Because when planning my first trip ever around Southeast Asia I took inspiration from their posts… that is how I discovered the Gili islands, which honestly were completely unknown to me! The Nomadic Boys wrote a few months back (you can read their complete reportage here) a complete ironic gay friendly review about the Gili Islands. This review helped me clear my mind and decide which of the three islands to choose for my holidays: they compared the three islands to the Destiny’s Child!

The tourism in these beautiful Islamic islands is increasing and each of them is specializing in attracting a different type of travelers: Gili Trawangan, Gili Meno and Gili Air, all equally beautiful, cater to different lifestyles. First of all: Where are these islands located? The Gili islands belong to the beautiful country of Indonesia, and are situated off the northwest coast of Lombok. Lombok is one of the biggest islands of the country, just a short hop from Bali.

We did of course point out to our concerned friends and family back home that Sharia Law is only in place in one small part of Indonesia in the Northern Aceh province. If the rainbow flag gets out of control in Aceh, you risk being convicted by the Sharia police to 10-150 lashes in public for being gay.

And yes, this now applies to foreigners too!

But we don’t go around waving rainbow flags. Nor do we have any interest in getting publicly canned in Aceh (our caning adventures at the Komodo National Park were more then enough)…

We always get excited when we see a bit of our own culture in the places we visit. So anything with a little bit of Greek and French influence immediately grabs our attention.

Our favourite 10 facts about Indonesia ticks all these boxes…did you know the majority of the French frogs’ legs are imported from Indonesia…or even know where the word Indonesia comes from? (A smug Greek Stefan smiles knowingly…)

#1 THE GREEK ISLANDS OF THE EAST

“EH?!” we hear you cry… You heard right! Stefan was quick to point out that the word Indonesia is in fact derived from 2 Greek words: Indo meaning, “India” and ni-sia meaning “islands”. Ok, so Indonesia is not actually the Greek islands of the East. But it was enough to get Stefan excited to discover a piece of Greek influence.

So get this, Indonesia is made up of over 17,000 islands with strong Hindu, Dutch, Portuguese, Chinese and Middle Eastern influence. The country is one massive colourful fabric of different races, languages, ethnicities: over 300 ethnic groups are united under the mighty Indonesian archipelago.

This is also true of the food, one of the most vibrant and colourful cuisines in the world, full of intense flavours. Here’s our 10 best traditional food of Indonesia:

#1 NASI GORENG: Indonesian fried rice

Nasi goreng is a popular Indonesian staple, kind of like what pad Thai is to Thailand. Nasi means rice and goreng means fried. A nasi goreng usually includes meat (usually chicken), vegetables, cooked with spices, shallots, garlic, tamarind, chilli, served with sweet soy sauce seasoning and crackers.

Get ready for the sharks and the almighty dragons! This is our gay friendly travel guide to Labuan Bajo and the island of Flores, the base for the mind-blowingly incredible underwater world of Komodo National Park.

Flores is located in East Nusa Tenggara on the Southern end of Indonesia, between Lombok and Papua islands. The waters around the island form part of the Coral Triangle, containing one of the richest marine biodiversity on the planet: a true paradise for divers.

Oh and did you know Flores means flower in Portuguese? It originates from the large Catholic influence brought over by the Portuguese colony in the 1511-1846. Flower island – another reason to love this place.

The Gili islands reminded us of Destiny’s Child: a trio of talented divas but ultimately upstaged by a superstar.

Gili Trawangan is the Beyonce of the trio. She’s the most famous, the centre of attention where all the action happens. She has all the parties, bars, variety of restaurants, diving shops and of course people: holidaying couples, partying groups of friends, backpackers, hippies, that cute Australian guy who winked at you last week at the airport in Bali…everyone!

And then there’s the other two…

We visited the Gili islands in September 2015 and set out to discover the best they have to offer. They are one of Indonesia’s most popular destinations, famous for their white sandy beaches, warm tropical waters and abundance of sea turtles just metres from the beach. We put together our gay friendly travel guide to these three Indonesian gems.

Bali. Our guilty pleasure Now HERE is a playground for the gay boys! Our trekking in Mount Rinjani and scuba diving in the Komodo National Park left us feeling exhilarated, but quite frankly, knackered! We were ready to let our hair down. A visit to Bali was calling us

Bali has a nice mix of luxury villas and spas in Seminyak, culture and scenic lush green rice terraces in centrally located Ubud and of course, a whole bunch of gay bars. Sophisticated Seminyak with its luxury villas and high restaurants is also where youll find the Bali gay bars.

Indonesia is not really well known as being very gay friendly at all, lacking any comprehensive pro LGBT legislation. But despite this, Bali is the gay oasis of the country. When we visited in September 2015, there were 4 bars/clubs on the road called: Jalan Camplung Tanduk Arcade.

Periodically we’ll feature one of our properties here to let our readers know about some great gay friendly places to stay.

Gekotour is not your ordinary travel tour experience. Our goal is to make a positive impact!! Learn from the ancestral Asian villagers: amazing authentic culture, delicious traditional cuisine, hand-made traditional handicrafts and environment stewardship. While on tour, learn new skills such as art, photography, cooking or yoga and meditation practice with expert Gekotour local guides and professional facilitators. Contribute wholeheartedly with local NGO and Non-profit organizations, family and local community operated businesses, and village monks and chiefs whose passion is to maintain their ancient culture, history, and cuisine. Sit back and reflect in remote communities in Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam, South Korea, Cambodia and India, away from the hustling tour groups.